It’s one of the most common complaints patients have – lower back pain.

Now, a new medical device for low back pain is being tested in New Orleans.

“What happens is as we get older, our discs degenerate, we gain weight, those sorts of things, and the pressure in our spine increase,” Dr. Najeeb Thomas said. “Our body’s response is to grow more bone or the ligaments to over grow. What happens is that generally causes a narrowing of that boney canal.”

The bulging discs and bone growth from arthritis cause that narrowing. Nerves get squeezed and pinched. The pain, numbness and weakness can go from the back all the way down the legs.

On Friday, a 65-year-old man in New Orleans became the first person in the country to have a new treatment, one performed by Thomas at East Jefferson Hospital. It’s one of the only 20 places in the country that is part of a clinical trial to study a new device called a diam.

The implant keeps the compressed area open. Normally, doctors go in and clear out what is obstructing or pressing on the nerves. But as the year go by, scar tissue and other changes cause the pain to come back.

But the hope is that this new implant will keep the area held open.

“The idea is if this device will share some of the normal physiological load so that those good effects that we get from the surgery can last many, many years,” Thomas said.

Half of the patients in the study will have surgery the way it’s normally done – decompressing the nerves and removing what’s causing the pressure. The other half in the study will get the new diam implant.

Both surgeries are done through small minimally invasive openings.

Then the FDA will study if those with the implants have a better result.

“There’s some exciting data where people are using it in Europe and other areas, but the purposes of this study is to be able to determine is it effective and are we really getting an improvement,” Thomas said.

But to get in the study, certain criteria has to be met.

“We only do surgery if you failed multiple conservative therapies, injections, medications, physical therapy,” Thomas said. “So, you can only be a candidate after you failed those less invasive or conservative options.”

You need to be between 35 and 80 years old and have had six months of treatment that was not surgery. To see if you qualify, call 454-0141.